Thanks to their five Cup titles from 2006-2010, Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus have faced the typical claims that they aren’t doing everything by the letter of the NASCAR rulebook. Knaus is known to have pushed the rulebook a little too far at times, and Johnson’s car was too low following qualifying at New Hampshire after the organization had to scramble to get through tech just a couple of weeks ago.

So, when the team put up partitions between their car and those of the Brad Keselowski and Clint Bowyer teams at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the big question lighting up social media was if they were trying to hide anything prior to the Brickyard 400.

Johnson, who has long resigned himself to trying to defend everything his team does, at first joked about the partitions.

"NASCAR has given us an advantage to hide our stuff so that we can work in private and not let anybody see what’s going on," Johnson deadpanned Saturday morning prior to practice at IMS. "But they won’t allow any other team to do it. So it’s just for the 48."

NASCAR has an open-garage philosophy in hopes that if teams see something another team is doing that might be illegal, they would be tempted to turn those teams into NASCAR officials. The Hendrick team of Johnson is the only one using the partitions—none of the other Hendrick teams have them.

The IMS garages are wider than most—they were designed for the Formula One race that used to be held at the track—and some teams just use big toolboxes as a barrier between the cars. Others have nothing against the crews working side-by-side in sight of each other, as they do week after week.

It was at Indianapolis last year that Johnson’s team debuted a tweak to its rear suspension that helped Johnson win the race. Those tweaks weren’t outlawed until this year, and when Keselowski’s team tried to develop something new in that area, it had parts confiscated and suffered penalties in April at Texas.

In the wake of the Penske violations, Johnson had to refute rumors that his team ratted Keselowski’s team out to NASCAR officials after being parked beside Keselowski in the garage.

So what’s up with these partitions?

Johnson, this time serious, explains: "You might notice over the last few years we wanted to spruce up that area (of the garage)," Johnson said. "Knowing that all the F1 stalls are the exact same and the way F1 does such a beautiful job of building out a garage area, Chad was just inspired to do that a year or two ago."

The partitions are clearly visible and Johnson’s team had them up both Friday and Saturday, so obviously if NASCAR had a problem with them, the partitions would have been gone by Saturday morning.

"Lowe’s and (tool-maker) Kobalt provided all the stuff that they have in-store that we can put right in our pit box," Johnson said. "Chad even went through all the steps to get it approved with NASCAR. It’s really just to show off the great things that are sold in store."